In recent years, the price of electronic devices has decreased dramatically. In addition, the types of electronic components that can be purchased have continued to increase. For example, DVD players, large screen TVs, multi-carousel CD and DVD players, MP3 players, video game consoles, and similar consumer electronic items have become more widely available while continuing to drop in price.
The decreasing prices and increasing types of electronic components have packed today's homes and businesses with modern conveniences. As more of these components are sold, the average household power consumption also increases. Typical homes and businesses now include more power-consuming devices than ever before. With the increasing demands for power, at times power consumption may approach the limit on the capacity to generate power. If the consumption gets too close to the upper limit on power generation capacity, power outages and/or disruptions, such as blackouts and brownouts, may occur.
To avoid such power disruptions, a region may build infrastructure to increase power generation. However, increasing power generation for a geographic region is often very expensive. Thus, it may be more cost effective to determine ways to decrease consumption at certain times. As such, there is a need for improved systems and methods for decreasing power consumption while limiting the adverse effects as much as possible.